VOL. XVI.] FHILOSOPKICAI. TRANSACTIONS. 417 



their multitude may make the quantity of water they emit to be very consider- 

 able. 



The manner of the falling away of the water or emptying of the lake I thus 

 explain : After a long drought, or want of rain, all the springs that feed the 

 upper lake under Javornik are much diminished ; so that wanting fresh supplies 

 it ceases to run over by the several channels ; hence the lake of Zirknitz, and 

 that under it are fed only by the eight rivulets that always fall into them ; and 

 then the water draws off faster than it comes in, both by the channels of Mala 

 and Velkakarlouza, as also by a concealed subterraneous passage out of the 

 under lake, which latter alone is able to transmit more water than the said 

 eight rivulets afford. Consequently the lake must sink, and that in a certain 

 proportion of time, depending on the quantity of water to be evacuated, com- 

 pared with the excess of that which runs out above what enters it, in the same 

 time. Those pits that are higher are soonest dry, the lower latest, and so come 

 to be emptied in the order above described. And when the lake is all dry, then 

 the said rivulets soak by several little lioles in the bottom into the under lake, 

 and all their water is carried away by the subterraneous passage. 



The ducks so often mentioned, and which are cast out with the water, are 

 generated in the lake under the mountain Javornic ; when they first come out, 

 they swim well, but are stark blind, and have no feathers on them, or but few, 

 and therefore are easily caught; but in 14 days time they get feathers, and re- 

 cover their sight yet sooner, and afterwards fly away in flocks. They are black, 

 only white on the forehead ; their bodies not large, resembling ordinary wild- 

 dudts, and are of a good taste, but toa fat, having near as much fat as lean. 

 I killed some of them as soon as they had been cast out at Sekadulze ; and 

 opening their bodies, I found in them much sand, and in sortie few small fishes, 

 in others green stuff like grass or herbs ; which was the more strange, because 

 I never found any green thing growing in any of the subterraneous grottos or 

 lakes rn Carniola. Almost every year, at a hole in the mountain called Storseg, 

 about half a German mile from the lake of Zirknitz, near the town of Laas, 

 whenever there happen great floods of rain, this sort of ducks is cast out m great 

 abundance, by the water gushing out with much force. 



^ Conjecture at the Quantity of Blood in Men ; with an Estimate of the Celerity 

 of its Circulation. By Allen Moulin, M.D. F.R.S. N° igi, p. 433. 

 In a sheep which alive weighed 1 l&lb. we found but S-J^lb, of blood, which is 

 but -,^5- of the weight of the sheep. In a lamb, weighing 304-lb. when living, 

 there was but lilb. of blood, which is nearly a 20th part. In a duck weighing 

 alive 2 lb. 14 oz. 50gr. we found Hoz. and 33 gr. oi blood, whiclx is lesa than 



TOL. III. 3 H 



